Rufus Ward enticed members of the Columbus Convention and Visitors Bureau board Monday with the idea of a shrine to Columbus-born effects animator Joshua Meador.
Meador, who worked for Disney and is credited with animating scenes from movies such as “Fantasia,” Peter Pan” and “Cinderella,” is “one of the most significant artists to come out of Mississippi,” said Ward, a local historian.
A kind of art park honoring Meador, who was raised in Columbus and died in 1965, could be built next to the Tennessee Williams Welcome Center on Main Street, Ward suggested.
Ward told the board about commitments Meador”s relatives and Disney colleagues have made for a Columbus tribute to Meador.
For example, Ward said Meador”s son, Phil, is loaning about 50 of his father”s original drawings, ranging from casual beach-side sketches to serious conceptual designs, if they could become a permanent exhibit. And Ward said he had requested from Disney a limited-edition lithograph of one scene Meador had animated.
For the most part, the board kept quiet during Ward”s update on the ongoing project of capitalizing on Meador”s Columbus roots and honoring his achievements. But board members did have questions.
“Is this a niche group of people who would come in and look at it?” board member David Sanders asked.
“Everybody that”s interested in Disney,” Ward said.
Some board members nodded of approval.
In other business, the board:
- Heard from Brown about changes he”d made to plans for the new building designed to house the Columbus CVB, planned to be built behind the Tennessee Williams Welcome Center.
The latest design, blueprints of which Brown flipped through, shows a building rising two stories and taking up 3,909 square feet. Offices could have 12-foot ceilings.
Brown said tenants for the condominiums and other office space in the building have not yet been found.
- Heard from Greg Lewis and Ward 5 Councilman Kabir Karriem on the 27th annual Seventh Avenue Festival, which is scheduled to take place in October.
Among other things, the festival will feature a blacktop basketball tournament at Sim Scott Park. As of Monday, 16 teams were planning to participate, and the tournament will attract players from Tennessee, among other places, Lewis said.
Altogether, Lewis said he expects between 12,000 and 15,000 people to attend the festival this year.
- Heard from a member of the First Baptist Church about plans to hold its annual Christmas festival in December. In the last few months, church members have done research into the accuracy of the living Nativity scene depicted in the festival, so as to improve it for the one this year.
- Voted unanimously to paint a CVB double-decker bus fire-engine red.
- Voted unanimously to only permit in future Columbus CVB minutes those items delineated in “Robert”s Rules of Order.”
The Dispatch Editorial Board is made up of publisher Peter Imes, columnist Slim Smith, managing editor Zack Plair and senior newsroom staff.
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